As many have pointed out, Desert Twister can also destroy creatures. I still think Beast Within is a color pie break, but I should have mentioned the Twister.
I think the best argument for Beast Within being a color pie break has less to do with being able to destroy creatures (which Desert Twister - still a popular casual card - also can do) and more to do with it intruding Blue's turf by being a pseudo-Pongify.
The Dark was a really weird set. There's a part of me that is intrigued about the idea of R&D's modern take on "the dark side of each color" but the more I think about it the more it just sounds like Planar Chaos 2.
3:18 Even though Mana Tithe was colorshifted, I honestly don't consider it a break even if it hadn't been shifted. I personally think "Counter target spell unless its controller pays X" should be in white anyway, as it's a taxing effect, similar to how Smothering Tithe can ramp you a ton in white, but it does so through taxing. Just my personal opinion.
@@ImSquiggs Futureshifted cards are kind of 'what ifs' that are supposed to show up eventually in normal sets since their first Futureshifted printing. Blade of the Sixth Pride, River of Tears and similar are examples of these cards.
@@DritzD27a Another one that they haven't done more with is "Fleshwrither". It is the only card in existence with the ability "Transfigure". While there are several cards with Transmute, kind of a parent ability that played better with the effect, it is interesting that no other card ever printed has that specific ability. Although we might have gotten Birthing Pod because of it. Hard to say for sure as we already had Natural Order long before Future Sight.
One you missed that upsets Mark Rosewatter quite a bit is Chaos Warp, a red instant that shuffles any permanent into its owner's library and puts the top card into play if it's a permanent. The random aspect is on brand for red, but the fact that it can deal with enchantments is something Maro considers a mistake.
Yeah, red and black can't deal with at all enchantments, and black has I think 2 cards that can destroy an artifact, one that is unplayable, and one that costs a ton and is barely playable. Annoying but fair.
@@mightyone3737 Black recently get a way to deal with enchantment with edicts (Mire in misery) so maybe in the future 3 colors dealt with artifacts (WRG) and 3 with enchantment (WGB)
@@mightyone3737 red and cards with red in cost have other ways to deal with enchantments the red ones mainly deal with sacing a creature to destroy it however.
Chaos Warp is an auto-include in any monored deck I make, so yeah something's wrong there. But yet they still reprint it for those sweet commander dollars every year....
I love awkward old cards that break the pie a bit. 6 mana for a card is rarely a good deal, but when you really need a solution, it's a nice topdeck with some dorks out to power it.
That was a really nice episode. I feel like, since you removed a lot of the cards that people already consider color breaking, we got to see weirder and more specific cards. Thanks !
And was at most a one of in any competitive deck even at the time because it was a six drop sorcery. Still, it should've been mentioned at the same time as Beast Within.
It's not _that_ bad. Out of all permanents, it's _only_ non-flying creatures that Green isn't supposed to be able to destroy. For 6 mana, it could be worse.
>phyrexian ingester "blue doesn't do creature destruction". Merfolk Assassin, Musician, and Reality Shift are all examples of blue doing just that. >Amnesia "no blue discard" There is also Venarian Glimmer, Trapfinders Trick, Minamo's Meddling, Dismal Failure, and Frightful Delusion. Discard is more like a weird offshoot of blue than the main show. Sort of like how lifelink is primarily white but black has a bit of it, too.
@@cutecommie Serum Raker was Mirrodin Beseiged and Compelling Deterrence was Shadows Over Innistrad, so actually fairly recently in the grand scheme of things. Note how every blue discard card I listed here and above are all *Modern* printings. They were all printed closer to today than they were printed to Amnesia.
Essence Flare can remove a 1 toughness creature before they can attack with the +2, and it generally kills off any annoying weenie you could want. A bit risky if you don't have a way to deal with the power boost though. I found it useful sometimes back in the day, and it could still deal with some utility creatures today fast enough to be helpful.
There is also Curse of the Swine... XUU to "Exile X target creatures. For each creature exiled this way, its controller creates a 2/2 green Boar creature token." That one is extra wacky because it creates GREEN creatures and has only blue in the casting cost.
@@KabukiKid Hahah, I never noticed that the creatures it creates are green! And I also play that card in pretty much every mono-blue deck that I make, and every single mono-blue EDH without question
What do you think about Faithless Looting and Ancient Stirrings? Red's identity when it comes to card draw has always been discard, then draw(Cathartic Reunion, Tormenting Voice, Thrill of Possibility) or draw, then discard at random (Goblin Lore, Burning Inquiry). Faithless Looting is the only mono-red card draw spell that lets you draw before you discard. Similarly, Ancient Stirrings, by being able to add colorless cards from your deck to your hand, allows green to add artifacts, something no other green card can do. (Green is allowed to add creatures, lands, and planeswalkers.) Though I'm pretty sure that putting "land or colorless nonartifact creature" on Ancient Stirrings would have been too much text.
Looking at scryfall, most red card draw was "discard your hand, then draw x cards" or "draw x cards, then discard x cards at random." It wasn't until RTR's Viashino Racketeer where we finally got "Discard a card, then draw a card" in red. Still unsure why a green card can find artifacts though.
@@kevinchen5948 it was more for the flavor of the set it came out in: RoE. Was meant to get lands/Eldrazi creatures in limited/ standard. (This is for ancient stirrings)
I was happy to see good ol “Witch Hunter” and “Darkness” on your list (“Darkness” has my favorite flavor in the whole game), but I was surprised to not see “Preacher” (which I always thought of, together with “Witch Hunter”, as WotC’s attempt to show the dark side of white.)
I always like the descriptions of white as being "focused on law, but isn't necessarily 'good'"... in that sense, many "fascist" or "totalitarian" flavored cards could be considered "white" cards because of their focus on "the law".
As far as blue hand attack, there's also Venarian Glimmer (an instant-speed targeted hand attack held back only by extreme inefficiency) and a variety of draw spells and counterspells that make an opponent discard.
I know something wierd other people Don't!!! Color pie breaks are sometimes justified with flavor and story reasons. Akroma Angel of Wrath everyone knows. But did you all know about Witch Hunter? In the Gathering Dark novel, the Church of Tal was an organization birthed shortly after the Devastation of Argoth, (approximately 2 or 3 generations Jodah was descended from Jarsyl descended from Urza.) The Church existed at the same time as the City of Shadows, a neutral magic organization, and the Conclave, an evil one. The Church of course hunted the magic users--- but little was known about magic in such ancient history! It was Mairsil the Pretender that made the realization that the Church themselves were using magic to hate magic in the same way his Conclave used it: tapping memories of the lands for channeling mana! The Witch Hunter card? It is a white-shifted Prodigal Sorceror to a T, with a built in Unsummon, also a "Blue Wizard" effect. The Witch Hunter itself is a Witch (wizard) and doesn't know it! The Church leaders conspired that most in the order did not need to know such "Holy Mysteries" to do their job. Straight out of the novels a reason for the White card to do Blue-Red things. Prodigal Sorceror was fair blue for a long time. So that's the story explanation. Its still a color pie break but there was a reason!
@@christiangarza8122 Yep, defender and haste. You can tap it to loot. Future Sight was a weird set. (I kinda wish they'd do cards like Bonded Fetch more often, actually. Having to wait a whole turn to activate makes creatures with tap abilities feel SO much worse than artifacts with tap abilities.)
Beast Within isn't the only green card that removes a creature, you're forgetting Desert Twister. Beast Within is half the mana & instant but gives them a 3/3 instead.
I am glad you mentioned Psionic Blast (and early). It was one of the first cards I had in mind before clicking on the video. Also there really aren't many mono blue instant type (explicitly, as opposed to being part of a combo) direct damage spells, even to this day. I also thought of Gate to Phyrexia and Phyrexian Tribute, both as mono black artifact destruction (and the first example being kind of okay, especially against certain decks, as well)
I like that on the more modern collections, where the color pie is more implemented, the majority of the top are cards from old collections where the colors hasn't a so strong identity, the phyrexia block is the only one which looks to have cards that break the identities, maching this evolve to perfection theme
I’m sure it’d be a pretty eh and expensive deck, but I think a deck built around color breaks would be pretty neat. Idk if you’d just focus on a specific color or just go all colors, but it sounds like a pretty flavorful deck
Thank you so, so, so much for this video. I had no idea Temporal Extortion existed, but I needed more life-loss gimmicks for my Rakdos demons EDH. You have no idea how much I needed a card like that.
@@OnEiNsAnEmOtHeRfUcKa I think this is due to playstyle design. They wanted green to have this raw power feel of playstyle, not the sneaky "can't block me" one. Otherwise I would agree that a card like Suntail Hawk should rather be green unless it is obviously a domesticated bird.
Avoid Fate. Green counterspell. But, I feel that anything printed pre-Weatherlight only counts somewhat as a color break. Things were just done differently in the beginnings of Magic. Unyaro Bee Sting in Mirage was one of the main reasons that made Maro lock down what the color pie was. Before that, there was no color pie.
The color pie was part of Garfield's original design. MaRo emphasized it more, but to say it didnt exist before MaRo is incorrect. I am ok with Avoid Fate, I basically see it as an early version of a card giving something shroud or hexproof until end of turn, which is very Green.
So that's why Oko is so Broko... His +1 is essentially beast within except the original creature doesn't even get to go to the graveyard until the elk leaves play. "Target creature becomes a ____" is a green and blue thing but it's always a card for a card, like pacifism. Oko ends up being a uptick in exchange for effectively a destroy effect. That's bananas.
When i returned to magic this year (through arena) i was suprised to encounter +/+ instant buff w trample from the red tutorial deck with run amok effects that scream green for me. Similar with indestructible combat trick from the black deck which i associate with white/green. White and blue behave as i remember, but with much more +/+ counters for white that was mainly a jund thing back in the day
i dont consider Akroma a color pie break because every color technically gets haste- but only when it needs it, like with Suspend and Awaken effects. Akroma has haste for the same reason Suspend does- it feels really bad to cast this huge incredible angel and then have to wait a turn to use it in any fashion (since Akroma is nothing deeper than a big body to attack with)
I found other white cards that list haste but don’t have it naturally so imma let you have that, but you also mentioned blue in that portion of the video, and I’d like to direct you to a personal fav card, Bonded Fetch! An 0/2 for 2U with haste and defender that also reads tap: draw a card, discard a card. Checkmate
I think Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter is also a card that breaks the colour pie. She's a green artificier, for one thing, and she can pay mana (green mana, even) to create artifact tokens. In the course of magic's history, there are five green cards that create artifacts, but none of them can do it at will like she can. Two of them are Splicers that create golems when they enter the battlefield, and two of them require energy, but Oviya can just create either a 1/1 servo or a construct that's as big as the number of creatures you control every turn.
She is kind of a break. Mark Rosewater has written about how sometimes breaks are useful in design, so that people can get a feel for how different a plane is. He wrote about that when talking about Green Dragons in Tarkir Block, but I feel like it also applies to Oviya. Kaladesh is a plane dominated by artificers and artifacts, so much so that even Green on that plane likes Artifacts. So, she might be a break, but I think she is a good one for establishing the flavor of Kaladesh.
Mind Bomb is a weird mono blue card that feels extremely black/red. One blue mana for a sorcery that deals 3 damage to all players. Each player may discard up to 3 cards to prevent that amount of damage done to them from Mind Bomb.
I always felt that Vendillion Clique was sort of a color pie breaker. I know its ability is similar to the breakers you showed (Amnesia and Forget), but those are "discard all" and "target player chooses and discards 2 cards" abilities, not targeted faux discard (which is almost exclusively a black ability).
There aren't any Black cards that do the Cliques weird ability either though, which I think makes it hard to classify as a break, since we cant point to another color and say "it should be doing it." The card would make the most since as UB I guess.
I know it's kinda stretching it, but Cairn Wanderer and Soulflayer can gain vigilance. And with white, there are the suspend and awaken cards that give haste, as well as Odric that can give haste if you control a creature with haste. I know that I'm nitpicking, but I'm just thinking of other cases as well. Though Odric really isn't that much of a color break
Phyrexian Injester is just a blue duplicant with +3/+3. Seems somewhat fitting if you think about what decks ran the original card. I think if you look at how it was originally a colorless spell it isn't as weird.
@Nizzahon Magic : At 6:42 you claimed that Beast Within is "quite literally the only green card in the game that can destroy a creature directly". You're forgetting Desert Twister.
Akroma's First Strike, Trample, Haste, and Vigilance abilities come from her wielding the Sword of Vengeance. Also 2 of her power. So even though you're correct that mechanically she breaks the pie, the flavor justifies it, imo.
The biggest problem is, that blue is clearly the strongest color. It identifies with magics most powerful aspects (instants, drawing/counter cards,) while having enough color break to have most of the other strong points (like stronc creatures) too
Its normalized now, but I still think it strange that Red was given 'control' over time. That is, effects that steal a creature and turn it against a player for a turn (rationalized as 'chaos' in flavor). When it came out, that was usually a blue effect like Ray of Command or Control Magic (along with a sea of other control/prison spells and effects). If anything, I thought a similar effect might appear in White as 'control' isnt a big leap from 'order'. At the time, It felt like another attempt to de-power blue since it had so many game-breaking effects in the early years.
Beast Within is a very weird Pongify effect combined with a Desert Twister. So maybe blue green, if anything. Also, my biggest "color pie" break would be Sensei's Divining Top no questions asked. Take Ponder effects, strip away the shuffling but make it into a permanent with a small activation cost. Top is a very blue effect
Piracy Charm U Instant Choose one - • Target creature gains islandwalk until end of turn. (It can't be blocked as long as defending player controls an Island.) • Target creature gets +2/-1 until end of turn. • Target player discards a card.
I felt Phyrexian Ingester sort of fits into blues Polymorph effects, similar to Ovinomancer, Pongify and Reality Shift, in that it removes a creature from the opponent’s board in exchange for an effect. I most strongly associate transmutation effects (changing one thing into another) with blue, and I think Phyrexian Ingester fits with that, although I could easily see it being black.
I might just flag Mind Bomb in reference to Amnesia. Whilst it is not a forced discard (being an opponent choice) that almost makes it more a break. If it was printed as 'do 3 damage unless you discard three' it would fit as a variant lightning bolt in red (1 to do 3) with the possibility of higher damage in multiplayer. Equally, with the make a painful choice option and discard focus it would fit black as well. In fact, the discard or lose life is on Painful Quandary. It doesn't create a symmetrical loot/rummage effect, so doesn't copy the Windfall model either. The opponents' choice does help flavour it blue - do you choose to hang on to knowledge at the cost of health? Which is more important to you? - and the symmetrical effect (it hits you as well) marries up with Windfall, but it is still outside the model as I would read it. Of course, both of these are from The Dark, so it could be argued that it fits the flavour of the set, with powerful poisonous magic that saps away at those who use it as much as those whom it afflicts.
Vigilance and haste are general enough that I don't feel the occasional appearance on black is a bad thing, especially with vigilance leaning into a death theme.
I hate to be the person to bring this up unless no one else has pointed it out but Darkness is actually thematically appropriate. As well it's night time lol it's kinda hard to hit things in the dark.
I know it was excluded from the list, but I don't think Mana Tithe is really a color break. Countering a spell isn't white, but making spells cost more is within whites abilities. Mana Tithe is an instant speed tax.
Top 10 deck colours (i.e. Which colour combinations have seen the most success across the history of competitive Magic?) Or if you want to court controversy : Top 5 colours.
biggest problem of the color pie is ideological. Blue and white are pretty much the only colors that can result in actually realistically likeable characters because they got the nondescript or positive or downright vacuous aspects like 'order' 'progress' 'thinking about things' and 'being at least somewhat nice'. They at least somewhat loosened it during the last few years of background story, but that actually makes it even worse because it just takes away even more tangability of the aspects the colors are supposed to represent. Way to go would have been slightly revising or revamping the thing to make the 'good' and 'bad' aspects more of a zero sum game in each color block.
Because there are other examples of Green card draw and deck manipulation from back in the day. There are no other examples of a straight up fog in Black.
Gotta HEAVILY disagree with beast within. You yourself said its within green’s color pie to transform creatures right? So if you destroy a creature with beast within, you are (in flavor) transforming it into the 3/3... like the card Kenrith’s transformation. PLUS as you said before, yes it mag be one of the only green cards that says the word “destroy” and hits creatures... but they clearly made it into a very green trade-off just like the other cards you mentioned you were excluding.
Interesting that you included Darkness, but didn't mention Glacial Crevasses. Not only is it a red Fog, but it's a repeatable red fogging enchantment. I always felt like Blue got the shaft for not getting at least SOMETHING that straight up prevented all combat damage.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
As many have pointed out, Desert Twister can also destroy creatures. I still think Beast Within is a color pie break, but I should have mentioned the Twister.
Also, Beast Within was explicitly called a break by Mark Rosewater.
Green later got Terastodon, but that is a replace effect technically, though it'll nuke 3 permanents, not just 1.
@@mightyone3737 It cant hit creatures. That type of effect is pretty common for Green.
Desert Twister is from Arabian Nights, the 1st expansion, I don’t think they had the color pie totally figured out yet.
I think the best argument for Beast Within being a color pie break has less to do with being able to destroy creatures (which Desert Twister - still a popular casual card - also can do) and more to do with it intruding Blue's turf by being a pseudo-Pongify.
It aggrivates me to no end that Red on that color pie has backwards text compared to all the others
It’s flavorful
I think Red was supposed to be the bottom of that wheel, instead of Green and White
But red Does have the best flavor text (or at least the funniest) 🤷
C H A O S
Red is a colour of ©π@∆$
Just want to say I like these subjective top 10s, I think that a lot of the more interesting topics in magic are usually subjective.
Top ten "you weren't supposed to do that" cards
I really like the subjective top 10's
Suggestion: top 10 good cards that were supposed to be bad.
Skullclamp top 3.
Flash lol
Also, top 10 bad cards that were supposed to be good.
Lion's Eye Diamond
Field of the Dead
The Dark was a really weird set. There's a part of me that is intrigued about the idea of R&D's modern take on "the dark side of each color" but the more I think about it the more it just sounds like Planar Chaos 2.
3:18 Even though Mana Tithe was colorshifted, I honestly don't consider it a break even if it hadn't been shifted. I personally think "Counter target spell unless its controller pays X" should be in white anyway, as it's a taxing effect, similar to how Smothering Tithe can ramp you a ton in white, but it does so through taxing. Just my personal opinion.
8:10 There is one Futuresight card in Blue that has haste, but its a Looter that also has defender.
Reprint Bonded Fetch!
Addition: It's one of the few futureshifted cards that hasn't "really happened" yet.
@@cutecommie What do you mean by "hasn't happened" yet? Just curious friend
@@ImSquiggs Futureshifted cards are kind of 'what ifs' that are supposed to show up eventually in normal sets since their first Futureshifted printing. Blade of the Sixth Pride, River of Tears and similar are examples of these cards.
@@DritzD27a Another one that they haven't done more with is "Fleshwrither". It is the only card in existence with the ability "Transfigure". While there are several cards with Transmute, kind of a parent ability that played better with the effect, it is interesting that no other card ever printed has that specific ability. Although we might have gotten Birthing Pod because of it. Hard to say for sure as we already had Natural Order long before Future Sight.
One you missed that upsets Mark Rosewatter quite a bit is Chaos Warp, a red instant that shuffles any permanent into its owner's library and puts the top card into play if it's a permanent. The random aspect is on brand for red, but the fact that it can deal with enchantments is something Maro considers a mistake.
Yeah, red and black can't deal with at all enchantments, and black has I think 2 cards that can destroy an artifact, one that is unplayable, and one that costs a ton and is barely playable. Annoying but fair.
@@mightyone3737 Black recently get a way to deal with enchantment with edicts (Mire in misery) so maybe in the future 3 colors dealt with artifacts (WRG) and 3 with enchantment (WGB)
@@mightyone3737 red and cards with red in cost have other ways to deal with enchantments the red ones mainly deal with sacing a creature to destroy it however.
Chaos Warp is an auto-include in any monored deck I make, so yeah something's wrong there. But yet they still reprint it for those sweet commander dollars every year....
@@ImSquiggs I mean it's one of my favorite removal spells of all time so I'm definitely glad it exists.
Green does also have Desert Twister. Destroy any permanent. Land, non-land, doesn't matter.
I love awkward old cards that break the pie a bit. 6 mana for a card is rarely a good deal, but when you really need a solution, it's a nice topdeck with some dorks out to power it.
That was a really nice episode. I feel like, since you removed a lot of the cards that people already consider color breaking, we got to see weirder and more specific cards. Thanks !
Glad you enjoyed it!
beast within... what about desert twister?? it literaly destroys a permanent for 6 mana. peroid
And was at most a one of in any competitive deck even at the time because it was a six drop sorcery. Still, it should've been mentioned at the same time as Beast Within.
It's not _that_ bad. Out of all permanents, it's _only_ non-flying creatures that Green isn't supposed to be able to destroy. For 6 mana, it could be worse.
@@ManaDrain315 Not to mention Tornado, and if you want to get really technical, Venomous Vines.
4:12
"But I think it should still bee here"
I love discussing color pie. This was a treat! =D
Indeed 😁
A pie!
>phyrexian ingester "blue doesn't do creature destruction".
Merfolk Assassin, Musician, and Reality Shift are all examples of blue doing just that.
>Amnesia "no blue discard"
There is also Venarian Glimmer, Trapfinders Trick, Minamo's Meddling, Dismal Failure, and Frightful Delusion. Discard is more like a weird offshoot of blue than the main show. Sort of like how lifelink is primarily white but black has a bit of it, too.
Black gets lifelink in pretty much every set. What was the last standard legal blue discard spell?
@@cutecommie Serum Raker was Mirrodin Beseiged and Compelling Deterrence was Shadows Over Innistrad, so actually fairly recently in the grand scheme of things.
Note how every blue discard card I listed here and above are all *Modern* printings. They were all printed closer to today than they were printed to Amnesia.
Mark Rosewater strongly likes and dislikes this video.
I mean TECHNICALLY Blue also has Pemmin's Aura as creatire removal - You can always play it as X1UU - Destroy target crature with toughness X
Thanks for the tip! I play Pemmin's Aura and never realised it's a kill spell, too.
Essence Flare can remove a 1 toughness creature before they can attack with the +2, and it generally kills off any annoying weenie you could want. A bit risky if you don't have a way to deal with the power boost though. I found it useful sometimes back in the day, and it could still deal with some utility creatures today fast enough to be helpful.
Wow, I've never thought of this... my blue pinger deck just got it's first real removal spell, hahah
There is also Curse of the Swine... XUU to "Exile X target creatures. For each creature exiled this way, its controller creates a 2/2 green Boar creature token." That one is extra wacky because it creates GREEN creatures and has only blue in the casting cost.
@@KabukiKid Hahah, I never noticed that the creatures it creates are green! And I also play that card in pretty much every mono-blue deck that I make, and every single mono-blue EDH without question
What do you think about Faithless Looting and Ancient Stirrings?
Red's identity when it comes to card draw has always been discard, then draw(Cathartic Reunion, Tormenting Voice, Thrill of Possibility) or draw, then discard at random (Goblin Lore, Burning Inquiry). Faithless Looting is the only mono-red card draw spell that lets you draw before you discard.
Similarly, Ancient Stirrings, by being able to add colorless cards from your deck to your hand, allows green to add artifacts, something no other green card can do. (Green is allowed to add creatures, lands, and planeswalkers.) Though I'm pretty sure that putting "land or colorless nonartifact creature" on Ancient Stirrings would have been too much text.
Both are examples of things that were okay at their time, the rules against them (and also most examples) are newer.
Discard then draw is a more recent view of red. It is a remake of 2 blue cards color shifted. I don't see it as breaking though.
Looking at scryfall, most red card draw was "discard your hand, then draw x cards" or "draw x cards, then discard x cards at random." It wasn't until RTR's Viashino Racketeer where we finally got "Discard a card, then draw a card" in red.
Still unsure why a green card can find artifacts though.
@@kevinchen5948 it was more for the flavor of the set it came out in: RoE. Was meant to get lands/Eldrazi creatures in limited/ standard.
(This is for ancient stirrings)
As far as Beast Within, what about Desert Twister?
The Dark was certainly a weird set. I think they tried to come up with new themes for each color on porpuse.
I was happy to see good ol “Witch Hunter” and “Darkness” on your list (“Darkness” has my favorite flavor in the whole game), but I was surprised to not see “Preacher” (which I always thought of, together with “Witch Hunter”, as WotC’s attempt to show the dark side of white.)
I always like the descriptions of white as being "focused on law, but isn't necessarily 'good'"... in that sense, many "fascist" or "totalitarian" flavored cards could be considered "white" cards because of their focus on "the law".
As far as blue hand attack, there's also Venarian Glimmer (an instant-speed targeted hand attack held back only by extreme inefficiency) and a variety of draw spells and counterspells that make an opponent discard.
I know something wierd other people Don't!!!
Color pie breaks are sometimes justified with flavor and story reasons. Akroma Angel of Wrath everyone knows.
But did you all know about Witch Hunter?
In the Gathering Dark novel, the Church of Tal was an organization birthed shortly after the Devastation of Argoth, (approximately 2 or 3 generations Jodah was descended from Jarsyl descended from Urza.)
The Church existed at the same time as the City of Shadows, a neutral magic organization, and the Conclave, an evil one.
The Church of course hunted the magic users--- but little was known about magic in such ancient history!
It was Mairsil the Pretender that made the realization that the Church themselves were using magic to hate magic in the same way his Conclave used it: tapping memories of the lands for channeling mana!
The Witch Hunter card? It is a white-shifted Prodigal Sorceror to a T, with a built in Unsummon, also a "Blue Wizard" effect.
The Witch Hunter itself is a Witch (wizard) and doesn't know it! The Church leaders conspired that most in the order did not need to know such "Holy Mysteries" to do their job.
Straight out of the novels a reason for the White card to do Blue-Red things. Prodigal Sorceror was fair blue for a long time. So that's the story explanation.
Its still a color pie break but there was a reason!
thats actually really cool thank you
Nizzahon literally just took out the first four cards that came to my mind as color pie break...
“[haste] has never appeared on any blue [creature] cards.”
Bonded Fetch would like a word with you. 😜
Haste and defender
Grant Jones Wait- What?
@@christiangarza8122 Yep, defender and haste. You can tap it to loot. Future Sight was a weird set. (I kinda wish they'd do cards like Bonded Fetch more often, actually. Having to wait a whole turn to activate makes creatures with tap abilities feel SO much worse than artifacts with tap abilities.)
Beast Within isn't the only green card that removes a creature, you're forgetting Desert Twister. Beast Within is half the mana & instant but gives them a 3/3 instead.
like Oko does, and he was just banned in standard and brawl.
Drop of Honey
I am glad you mentioned Psionic Blast (and early). It was one of the first cards I had in mind before clicking on the video.
Also there really aren't many mono blue instant type (explicitly, as opposed to being part of a combo) direct damage spells, even to this day.
I also thought of Gate to Phyrexia and Phyrexian Tribute, both as mono black artifact destruction (and the first example being kind of okay, especially against certain decks, as well)
There are several. I listed them elsewhere in the comments
I like that on the more modern collections, where the color pie is more implemented, the majority of the top are cards from old collections where the colors hasn't a so strong identity, the phyrexia block is the only one which looks to have cards that break the identities, maching this evolve to perfection theme
Bonded Fetch is a blue creature with haste...
It also has defender
@7:10 #8 Isn't Desert Twister a thing, also Tornado?
04:13 "But I think it should still BEE here."
witch hunter could easily be "Izzet Soldier Mage" or something
desert twister in green can destroy an permanent in play along with beast within
Yup, came to say this too.
@@dunelion i only said it bc i have one in one of my edh decks and it saves me a lot of trauma
I think anyone can be forgiven for forgetting Desert Twister.
@@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor whe you are new to old cards, yes
great video btw i love these types of videos
I’m sure it’d be a pretty eh and expensive deck, but I think a deck built around color breaks would be pretty neat. Idk if you’d just focus on a specific color or just go all colors, but it sounds like a pretty flavorful deck
Thank you so, so, so much for this video. I had no idea Temporal Extortion existed, but I needed more life-loss gimmicks for my Rakdos demons EDH. You have no idea how much I needed a card like that.
it is strange that green's answers to flyers are things that sound blue like windstorm and hurricane
I guess being a natural catastrophe is what makes them green in some sense.
@@Kettwiesel25 But then why does green have the least flyers?
Nature is FULL of birds!
@@OnEiNsAnEmOtHeRfUcKa I think this is due to playstyle design. They wanted green to have this raw power feel of playstyle, not the sneaky "can't block me" one. Otherwise I would agree that a card like Suntail Hawk should rather be green unless it is obviously a domesticated bird.
Number 8 : this video is now an elk
Except on Wednesdays...on MTG Arena.
Like today!
Avoid Fate. Green counterspell.
But, I feel that anything printed pre-Weatherlight only counts somewhat as a color break. Things were just done differently in the beginnings of Magic. Unyaro Bee Sting in Mirage was one of the main reasons that made Maro lock down what the color pie was. Before that, there was no color pie.
The color pie was part of Garfield's original design. MaRo emphasized it more, but to say it didnt exist before MaRo is incorrect.
I am ok with Avoid Fate, I basically see it as an early version of a card giving something shroud or hexproof until end of turn, which is very Green.
The Dark was one funky set. I love Amnesia in commander as no one expects it.
So that's why Oko is so Broko... His +1 is essentially beast within except the original creature doesn't even get to go to the graveyard until the elk leaves play. "Target creature becomes a ____" is a green and blue thing but it's always a card for a card, like pacifism. Oko ends up being a uptick in exchange for effectively a destroy effect. That's bananas.
Been watching your videos for years. I continue to deeply respect the depth of your research. Cheers!
Thanks!
When i returned to magic this year (through arena) i was suprised to encounter +/+ instant buff w trample from the red tutorial deck with run amok effects that scream green for me.
Similar with indestructible combat trick from the black deck which i associate with white/green.
White and blue behave as i remember, but with much more +/+ counters for white that was mainly a jund thing back in the day
i dont consider Akroma a color pie break because every color technically gets haste- but only when it needs it, like with Suspend and Awaken effects. Akroma has haste for the same reason Suspend does- it feels really bad to cast this huge incredible angel and then have to wait a turn to use it in any fashion (since Akroma is nothing deeper than a big body to attack with)
I love playing unyaro bees in selvala edh. Going infinite and killing someone with green fire breathing is so satisfying
8:11 Bonded Fetch exists
Maybe I missed it, but I dont't think anyone pointed it out. Gate to Phyrexia is super color busted.
SUBJECTIVE LIST YEAAAAA BOIIIIIIIII
Blue has Venarian Glimmer which is a straight up discard, but yeah, there are very very few of those.
I found other white cards that list haste but don’t have it naturally so imma let you have that, but you also mentioned blue in that portion of the video, and I’d like to direct you to a personal fav card, Bonded Fetch! An 0/2 for 2U with haste and defender that also reads tap: draw a card, discard a card. Checkmate
Dead//Gone is a bounce spell in red. How did it not make it on the list
Stingscourger
@@NizzahonMagic Which was also printed in planar chaos. The set designed around color breaks.
I think Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter is also a card that breaks the colour pie. She's a green artificier, for one thing, and she can pay mana (green mana, even) to create artifact tokens. In the course of magic's history, there are five green cards that create artifacts, but none of them can do it at will like she can. Two of them are Splicers that create golems when they enter the battlefield, and two of them require energy, but Oviya can just create either a 1/1 servo or a construct that's as big as the number of creatures you control every turn.
She is kind of a break. Mark Rosewater has written about how sometimes breaks are useful in design, so that people can get a feel for how different a plane is. He wrote about that when talking about Green Dragons in Tarkir Block, but I feel like it also applies to Oviya. Kaladesh is a plane dominated by artificers and artifacts, so much so that even Green on that plane likes Artifacts. So, she might be a break, but I think she is a good one for establishing the flavor of Kaladesh.
Have you ever heard about Glacial Crevasses?
A recurrent fog-like effect card... in red!
If only mono edh was more worth it xD
Goblin snowman is also a red fog
@@AgentPedestrian yep, but only for a single blocked creature
i know magic for a long time, but ive never seen this "+X/+Y" before :D
At one point, Fireball's had errata making it's mana cost XYR, doing X damage divided evenly (rounded down) among Y+1 targets.
Mind Bomb is a weird mono blue card that feels extremely black/red. One blue mana for a sorcery that deals 3 damage to all players. Each player may discard up to 3 cards to prevent that amount of damage done to them from Mind Bomb.
Never thought of Akroma as a color pie break!
I always felt that Vendillion Clique was sort of a color pie breaker. I know its ability is similar to the breakers you showed (Amnesia and Forget), but those are "discard all" and "target player chooses and discards 2 cards" abilities, not targeted faux discard (which is almost exclusively a black ability).
There aren't any Black cards that do the Cliques weird ability either though, which I think makes it hard to classify as a break, since we cant point to another color and say "it should be doing it." The card would make the most since as UB I guess.
6:43 what about Desert Twister?
My mum plays witch doctor in all her white decks. I saw it pop up and laughed.
WRT witch hunter, Icatian Javelineers can also tap to ping a creature or player for 1.
I know it's kinda stretching it, but Cairn Wanderer and Soulflayer can gain vigilance. And with white, there are the suspend and awaken cards that give haste, as well as Odric that can give haste if you control a creature with haste. I know that I'm nitpicking, but I'm just thinking of other cases as well. Though Odric really isn't that much of a color break
#10 "I think it should just BEE here."
Still bee here 4:15 😛
I saw what you did there
Phyrexian Injester is just a blue duplicant with +3/+3. Seems somewhat fitting if you think about what decks ran the original card. I think if you look at how it was originally a colorless spell it isn't as weird.
@Nizzahon Magic : At 6:42 you claimed that Beast Within is "quite literally the only green card in the game that can destroy a creature directly".
You're forgetting Desert Twister.
Akroma's First Strike, Trample, Haste, and Vigilance abilities come from her wielding the Sword of Vengeance. Also 2 of her power. So even though you're correct that mechanically she breaks the pie, the flavor justifies it, imo.
The biggest problem is, that blue is clearly the strongest color.
It identifies with magics most powerful aspects (instants, drawing/counter cards,) while having enough color break to have most of the other strong points (like stronc creatures) too
8:00 Bonded Fetch is mono blue and has haste: gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=132229
What is the opening music? it does not sound like "I can feel it coming" like in the description :)
You forgot the original Desert Twister
Its normalized now, but I still think it strange that Red was given 'control' over time. That is, effects that steal a creature and turn it against a player for a turn (rationalized as 'chaos' in flavor). When it came out, that was usually a blue effect like Ray of Command or Control Magic (along with a sea of other control/prison spells and effects). If anything, I thought a similar effect might appear in White as 'control' isnt a big leap from 'order'. At the time, It felt like another attempt to de-power blue since it had so many game-breaking effects in the early years.
Beast Within is a very weird Pongify effect combined with a Desert Twister. So maybe blue green, if anything. Also, my biggest "color pie" break would be Sensei's Divining Top no questions asked. Take Ponder effects, strip away the shuffling but make it into a permanent with a small activation cost. Top is a very blue effect
Piracy Charm U
Instant
Choose one -
• Target creature gains islandwalk until end of turn. (It can't be blocked as long as defending player controls an Island.)
• Target creature gets +2/-1 until end of turn.
• Target player discards a card.
It is intentionally colorshifted from Funeral Charm, so it doesnt really count
I felt Phyrexian Ingester sort of fits into blues Polymorph effects, similar to Ovinomancer, Pongify and Reality Shift, in that it removes a creature from the opponent’s board in exchange for an effect. I most strongly associate transmutation effects (changing one thing into another) with blue, and I think Phyrexian Ingester fits with that, although I could easily see it being black.
Wasn't there a green elven instant in shadowmoor that destroyed a creature and gave some tokens to the oponent? Merciful something I think.
Entire internet- dEsErT tWiStEr
Nizzahon- XD
I might just flag Mind Bomb in reference to Amnesia. Whilst it is not a forced discard (being an opponent choice) that almost makes it more a break. If it was printed as 'do 3 damage unless you discard three' it would fit as a variant lightning bolt in red (1 to do 3) with the possibility of higher damage in multiplayer. Equally, with the make a painful choice option and discard focus it would fit black as well. In fact, the discard or lose life is on Painful Quandary. It doesn't create a symmetrical loot/rummage effect, so doesn't copy the Windfall model either. The opponents' choice does help flavour it blue - do you choose to hang on to knowledge at the cost of health? Which is more important to you? - and the symmetrical effect (it hits you as well) marries up with Windfall, but it is still outside the model as I would read it. Of course, both of these are from The Dark, so it could be argued that it fits the flavour of the set, with powerful poisonous magic that saps away at those who use it as much as those whom it afflicts.
Top 10 Reserved List cards safe for a Standard reprint, and Aeolipile had BETTER be at or near the top of that list!
Wouldn't Harmonize also be a valid choice for green? Pay 4 draw 3
What about Mana Vortex. Straight up land destruction in blue. So is Mind Momb. Discard+Direct Damage in blue? And all for one mana!
The Dark was just a weird set in general.
@@MorbidAri Agreed. That is why i liked it. Just look at the video, the first on the list is from the dark...
Mana vortex is my jam
Couple I had in mind were Imp's Mischief for a black misdirection and Mana Tithe or Dawn Charm white counterspell
Richard Michael Owen he addresses all three of those Planar Chaos cards in the intro.
Bonded Fetch the only blue creature with haste!
No pyroblast, red elemental blast and guttural response?
Red counter counter spells are a pretty unique package that I put in all my red edh decks.
If it is hating against an enemy color, I find it hard to think of something as a color pie break.
4:13 I think it should still BEE here, get it?
Vigilance and haste are general enough that I don't feel the occasional appearance on black is a bad thing, especially with vigilance leaning into a death theme.
I hate to be the person to bring this up unless no one else has pointed it out but Darkness is actually thematically appropriate. As well it's night time lol it's kinda hard to hit things in the dark.
Green as a whole is a color pie break
6:45 That is inaccurate. There is also Desert Twister and Tornado.
10:13 Two artifacts: Soul Conduit and Mirror Universe
I know it was excluded from the list, but I don't think Mana Tithe is really a color break. Countering a spell isn't white, but making spells cost more is within whites abilities. Mana Tithe is an instant speed tax.
Top 10 deck colours (i.e. Which colour combinations have seen the most success across the history of competitive Magic?)
Or if you want to court controversy : Top 5 colours.
What about Gone from Planar Chaos? Only red bounce effect (aside from Aether Membrane which is conditional and also a break)
Dont forget stingscorger, just to name one
Will you take a look at the Test Cards in the Mystery Boosters?
I am thinking about it.
@@NizzahonMagic Please do. It would be a very fun video.
biggest problem of the color pie is ideological. Blue and white are pretty much the only colors that can result in actually realistically likeable characters because they got the nondescript or positive or downright vacuous aspects like 'order' 'progress' 'thinking about things' and 'being at least somewhat nice'.
They at least somewhat loosened it during the last few years of background story, but that actually makes it even worse because it just takes away even more tangability of the aspects the colors are supposed to represent.
Way to go would have been slightly revising or revamping the thing to make the 'good' and 'bad' aspects more of a zero sum game in each color block.
Why did flavor behind how the cards work matter for the blue life cards, but specifically did not matter for beast within?
This one could use a revisit for sure!
Your example of Sylvan Library is from Legends the same set as the card Darkness. So why is one okay and not the other?
Because there are other examples of Green card draw and deck manipulation from back in the day. There are no other examples of a straight up fog in Black.
There kinda is from the 93/94 core set, Simulacrum does a fog effect at the cost of one of your creatures
About green not being able to destroy permanents...desert twister
Gotta HEAVILY disagree with beast within.
You yourself said its within green’s color pie to transform creatures right? So if you destroy a creature with beast within, you are (in flavor) transforming it into the 3/3... like the card Kenrith’s transformation.
PLUS as you said before, yes it mag be one of the only green cards that says the word “destroy” and hits creatures... but they clearly made it into a very green trade-off just like the other cards you mentioned you were excluding.
Akroma is a color pie break for white because it's a good card
looks like someone never played Magic before
Marco Della Torre looks like someone’s never played commander. White can be good but pretty much only in combination with other colors.
Green does have some destroy target flying creature stuff. Notably plummet. Still not outright removal I suppose
Yep I talked about Green hating flyers earlier in the video. That is their niche for removal.
Interesting that you included Darkness, but didn't mention Glacial Crevasses. Not only is it a red Fog, but it's a repeatable red fogging enchantment. I always felt like Blue got the shaft for not getting at least SOMETHING that straight up prevented all combat damage.